


Monastic Egress

by MasterofAllImagination



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, coworkers to mostly-friends to almost-lovers, flirting via one-liners and noncommittal grunts, lightly resolved sexual tension, repartee (wit not guaranteed), sartorial disagreements, smedium burn, vague conflicted pining, with liberty and justice for all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25718569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterofAllImagination/pseuds/MasterofAllImagination
Summary: And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, and perceivest not the beam that is in thine own?
Relationships: Robert Townsend/James Rivington
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. Prologue

Robert kept himself curled out of sight against the side of the window, his eyes straining against the night as he watched the Queen’s Rangers depart. The fullest chill of the wee hours seeped through the casement and numbed his shoulder. Behind him, the candles set out so carefully for the Thanksgiving meal had all burned down to stubs, and the fire was dying in the hearth.

He pulled himself away. His father still sat where he'd collapsed into his chair, one hand holding his forehead as though supporting a fearsome weight. Robert crossed to the tongs and stoked the coals. The effort elicited nothing but a cough of sparks. He added another log.

There was a bottle of wine on the table that had been dug up from somewhere—out of consideration for the anticipated attendance of the Woodhulls, Robert guessed; and the reminder of Woodhull, and all that he'd brought beneath their roof that night, pulled his mouth down in sourness. It was the second time he had been forced to tend to abuse done his father at the hands of Abraham Woodhull. He would not suffer a third.

He knelt by his father’s chair and offered a watered measure of the wine. “Drink this,” he said. “A restorative.”

"I don't need—"

"Father."

His father drank.

“I am so sorry for bringing this trouble under our roof,” Robert murmured.

“Robert,” his father said, in a voice that was flimsy yet still chiding and familiar. His eyes left the middle distance and found Robert's face. “None of this was your fault.”

Robert took the cup from his lax hands. “No,” he allowed, though he could feel his expression contorting again. “No, this was Woodhull’s fault; and that man Rogers. But I bent to his machinations, and agreed to aid their cause, and I am—”

His father cut over him, quietly. “You were only doing what you thought was right.” The new log snapped in the hearth. “Just as Abraham was doing. We should remember that before we pass judgement upon him.”

Robert felt the urge to to rise and pace to the other end of the room; but he kept himself still by his father's chair, though his hand was shaking, and he had to reach backwards blindly to deposit the cup on the table. “You would defend him?” he hissed. He gestured, vaguely and rudely, at the cold vegetables and plundered turkey; at the memory of men and guns and a breach of trust so magnificent that Robert could barely conceptualize it, except as a bottle of wine; undrunk. “After what he’s done?”

His father's face quivered, then folded. “I—He acted in good faith, and—actions undertaken in true necessity must—should be forgiven.”

There was no belief beneath his father's words. Not the kind of belief that so often truly stirred him. And Robert could see further, past the protest, down to the raggedness of spirit it so badly hid. He himself had a great many words for the likes of Abraham Woodhull. For his father's sake, he swallowed them. Making no effort to keep the bitterness from his voice, he said only, “We may as well eat. I’ll get something to warm the plates.”

The late meal hardly tasted on his palate. Neither of them spoke but to say goodnight, and when Robert awoke in the morning it was to find the hour already too late to attempt the trip back to York. When he put an ear to his father’s closed door, he heard no sound of wakefulness from within, so he changed his shirt, went down the stairs, and began to put the house in order. 

The soldier at the ferry checkpoint held out a hand for his pass into the city. Deep in his thoughts, Robert stirred mildly in the saddle.

“Bloody cold day for riding alone from Long Island,” said the soldier.

“And an equally cold one for checking passes," Robert returned.

The soldier gave an appreciative snort as he extended Robert’s papers. “Everything’s in order.”

Robert touched the brim of his hat and rode on.

The flat sky portended snow, and the biting crisp of the air earnestly agreed. Yet the streets of York City were crowded. Wagons clogged the corners, and there seemed to be more soldiers about than when he’d left. It occurred to him, clearly, that he ought to slow and take a count of their numbers.

He kept his eyes straight ahead and urged his horse slightly faster. He would have been missed at the coffeehouse. Peter had expected him back the previous day, and if he should ask, Robert needed an explanation to hand. One did not come easily. Claiming _holiday overindulgence_ was implausible at best, and _delays on the road_ too easily contradicted by stray small-talk from a customer.

The best lie was a version of the truth, Robert knew; but what piece of that damned night was palatable enough to repeat? Into what parts could he break the lines of his father’s face, or the grasping greed in the protests of those he’d come to think of as friends when faced with the revocation of his service to their cause? Robert had put his trust in a liar, and paid the due cost for that mistake. Not even Rivington could contort that truth into something which would please an audience.

Robert’s fingers were numb when he stripped the gloves from his hands in the patchy warmth of the coffeehouse. The door’s draft battered against the valiant efforts of the hearth at the far end of the room. Robert was thinking about flues, and kinetic theory, when Peter sighted him, weaving between the tables with a vaguely nervous mien.

“I’ve kept the place as you asked, sir,” the young man said. “Only Rupert couldn’t find the hyson, and we ran out yesterday.”

Robert sighed shortly. Rupert had been working the tables for several months now, and should have known better. It was a small matter. After several hours on horseback, it was simply good to be under a roof again. He cast an eye around the semi-filled coffeehouse: everything there had its place, and everything seemed to be in it; but he would assure himself of that, personally, later. Rivington was neither holding court by the hearth nor furiously penning some drivel for the next edition at the corner table. Robert surmised he would be found with his presses, which meant a brief reprieve from his overbearing presence.

Satisfied, he removed his cloak and doffed his hat, handing them both to Peter. “Take these to my room. Tell Rupert that the hyson is kept in the basement, not the storeroom, _behind_ the molasses, and that I’ll fetch up the reserves myself.”

Peter hurried off, clearly relieved, leaving Robert in the doorway. The bustle of conversation and the muted clink of pewter rose around him. Each inn and every and tavern and boarding house was made of the same sounds, but possessed their own rhythm, to which one grew accustomed. A few curious eyes lingered over him, only to slip away when recognition came. He, the unassuming Quaker, who brought them their drinks; and knew nothing more of him, nor cared to. A sea of strangers’ faces looked down upon him, and he, a stranger, looked back upon them.

Cold air buffeted against Robert's back. When he turned, he found an officer waiting to enter. Robert muttered an excuse and stepped aside.

The basement was unlit at this time of day, but he knew his way well enough not to waste the light, give or take a cautiously extended palm. The densely packed labyrinth of crates and barrels muffled the noise from the tables above. In the darkness and the slightly stale air, Robert hesitated a moment or two, feeling his thoughts quiet in kind. It seemed to him an oddly welcoming place. He might slip between a crate and the wall, and press his forehead against the cool stone, and breathe deep; and perhaps stay there for a few hours, or days; and no-one would miss him, and he would not be asked for, and nothing would be asked of him.

But eventually, he found the molasses, and from behind it took two neatly wrapped bricks of hyson.

A loud creak and bright shaft of light fell into the basement. Quick as it had shone, a large shadow blocked its source at the top of the stairs, and the light vanished. "There you are, Townsend! Peter was looking for you, something about a drink."

Rivington's voice, as ever, was overloud for the space in which it was used. 

"Yes," Robert said, the tea tucked conspicuously under one arm, "I've taken care of it."

"Weren't you meant to be back yesterday?"

He climbed the stairs. “Decided to stay on and help my father with some of his winter preparations,” he answered. Two steps below the landing, he stopped, expectant. When Rivington shifted aside to let him pass, Robert felt eyes upon him.

“Is that all? You look terrible, Townsend. They didn’t give you any trouble at the checkpoint?”

Robert crossed to the shelf where they kept the tea and bent to store the bricks. With his face turned safely away, he wondered if, in the darkness, he’d allowed something to show there which had lingered afterwards, and given him away. His stomach felt as though he’d missed the top step of the stair. But he hadn’t stumbled, not once.

Robert opened his mouth on a reply, then closed it again. He arranged the tea more precisely. When he straightened, Rivington was waiting, head titled, oddly intent; a demanding curiosity that Robert, in his exhaustion, nearly mistook for concern.

“It was a long ride on a cold day,” was all he said. “I’ll feel better after some coffee.”

“You’d do as well to make it a Madeira,” Rivington threw back. But Robert’s answer seemed to have satisfied him, and he was already turning away.

Privately, Robert thought he might have a point, but set about fixing himself something warm regardless, his hands quick and experienced on the pot and spout. Across the room, Rivington had fallen into conversation with some woman or another, and Peter was setting fresh tapers into the sconces. Outside, in the dimming daylight, it had finally begun to snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [knocks on wood] aiming for chapter updates every third Tuesday


	2. One

Robert had hidden the gun, alongside Brewster's vial of mysterious ink, behind a false-backed drawer in his desk. The reassuringly uninquisitive man who'd sold it to him had asked only: “You’ll be wanting powder and shot?”

Robert inspected the gun like the foreign thing it was. “I’m sorry?”

The man looked at him.

“No,” Robert had said. “Thank you.”

The gun was across the room from where Robert lay abed, but he could feel its cold contours against his palm. His hand twitched over the coverlet. He’d said _no_ to that man, and thought himself so clever—to have satisfied his own fears, his father’s counsel, and God’s guidance; all at one stroke.

He hadn’t felt very clever aiming the unloaded thing across his father’s table at Rogers.

Robert wiped his palm across his face, stared at the ceiling, and emptied his mind, firmly and relentlessly, until it was blank enough to allow sleep.

That next morning, Rivington asked, “What’s got your mouth in a moue, Townsend?”

Robert wasn’t sure how long he’d spent glaring at the rag he held loosely in his hand. He arranged his lips into a more pleasing, empty shape. “Excuse me. I think I’m not feeling well.”

Rivington took a half-step back. “I hope it’s not catching.”

“No,” he said, letting ruefulness color his tone, certain as he was that Rivington would not notice, “I don’t think it is.”

“Not something you picked up on your last visit to Long Island, is it? Only the other week you left so suddenly,” Rivington said, in that leading way of his, as though he were estimating how many column inches he could fill with Robert’s answer, “and I thought perhaps you had received some unfortunate news.”

“My father is in fine health, but I thank you for your concern.”

“And Nelly?”

Robert’s eyes narrowed. The man had a fishmonger’s memory for gossip. Out of all the lies Robert had ever spoken in his presence, he’d picked the one most hastily told. Flatly, Robert replied, “She’s well.”

“ _Just_ well?”

“Very well.”

A smirk wreathed Rivington’s face. “Am I to believe your visits to Long Island stem strictly from filial piety? Are they not perhaps more _recreational_ in nature?”

Rivington's assumption held so little resemblance to the truth it was nearly laughable. Robert had stood in dirty hay and fought to keep his voice steady and reasonable while a half-awake stable boy demanded to know, _what’s the big idea? It’s the middle of the night._ And the hastily printed _Gazette_ in his pocket, bearing foreknowledge of a surprise British attack on the Continental Army at Middlebrook, had left smears of ink on his skin when he’d reached in for his coin purse, and urged the boy to keep his voice down. He'd ridden through the night with exhaustion nipping at the corners of his eyes and arrived in Setauket just in time to see a man soil himself with terror on a public street, and then to deliver the very fate of the war into Abe Woodhull’s stained hands.

And Rivington stood in front of him and wondered whether he’d paid a conjugal visit to a woman. Robert grasped for the pride he might once have taken in such a successful deception, and came up wanting.

“You know, if you ask me, Townsend, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

He hadn’t, but that never seemed to deter Rivington. Robert cast his eyes up and down his tall bulk, wondering what it was that continually drew women to his arm. Certainly he offered them no material inducement—no handsome features nor financial means—though Robert had observed his expertness at distributing attention here, flattery there; never anything sincere enough to encourage a lasting interest; never so cloying as to discourage the next comely face. If he did not find it so tasteless, Robert could almost admire Rivington’s adroitness.

“Have you heard lately from that lovely woman who was here for some coffee last week—” Robert pretended to seek for a name he had never heard—“was it Charlotte?”

A light came into Rivington’s eyes. “Dorothea,” he said, and continued, confidingly, “Gone home to her father in the Chesapeake Bay.”

“A shame.”

“Some type of arranged engagement.”

Robert tutted.

“To take a young woman in her prime away from the most glorious city in the Colonies, and perhaps the entire Empire?” Rivington shook his head. “Though you’ll not tell Cooke I said that,” he added, “his set does so adore London—”

“—of course—”

“—but between the two of us, give me New York City,” Rivington continued, “for she is the most demanding and the most beautiful mistress of them all.”

Robert knew the city well. He had studied in the city, and begun a business in the city, and for ten years, its citizens had slept under his roof. He’d learned how to play draughts in New York City. When the war came, his father had urged him to return to the farm, and he’d told Rivington, not a fortnight past, that he would sell his stake and do so.

But Robert had brought the _Gazette_ to Abe, and stayed. 

“I do see the appeal,” he said, and found that he had fallen into an undertone. He cleared his throat. “In any case, I do not think I shall be returning to the country for some time.” 

Winter had broken at last, as dirty as ever a winter were in the city, the Hudson the color of cold stone and the ships at anchor hazy masses swirled with drifts of white at mast-tip and water-line. The gloom was stuffed with days of industry, of insulating the storeroom with burlap and straw and breaking a rime of ice on ink that had frozen overnight; of having to shrug into his good cloak just to take delivery of a package on the stoop. Rivington’s only concessions to the season were to acquire a pair of gloves and complain loudly each morning of what the frost had done to his shoes.

As they approached the end of the year, Rivington began to talk of having a party. 

“Can we afford it,” Robert asked, his eyebrows climbing his forehead.

“Of course we can. It’s Christmas,” Rivington said. “Surely even _you_ can make an exception for a holiday.”

The quill in Robert’s hand shifted slightly. “Yes,” he said, “I can make an exception for a holiday.” And he made several deliberate marks in the appropriate columns of the ledger: additional expenses for _meat, ale, cordwood_. From over his shoulder, Rivington made an approving noise.

Rivington had a head for business like a sieve had holes for holding water. Robert’s first act as invested partner had been to take over the bookkeeping, but there was still, he felt, room for improvement. Newsprinting was infamously expensive, but it stymied Robert—and he had remarked as much, in scathing undertones, to several partial parties in his time at his own inn—how so popular an establishment as Rivington’s could have so little to show for it.

And then he’d seen his ledgers, and thought, _ah_. Bit by bit, Robert defended his own investment: employing Peter and Rupert, amending prices, negotiating costs, cutting back the most egregious indulgences. Rivington’s was bright and raucous and busy where his inn had been quiet and dark and neat, but he kept their ledgers balanced, just the same.

A Christmas party sounded more like an excuse to carouse than a celebration of Christ’s nativity, but Robert held his tongue, and on the day, the place was stuffed to the brim with officers whose buttons shone and whose braids glinted in the light of a well-stoked hearth. A close heat rose, under which Robert found himself plucking at his neck cloth, looking forward to the relief of cold air when the door would open and admit yet another attendee.

“Townsend,” Rivington called to him over the din, making as he did so a kind of drink-addled gesture that Robert could not interpret. “Unbend your Quaker mores and come converse with us lesser Anglicans!”

Before he could stop himself, Robert started forward, objecting, “I assure you, I do not view any faith as _lesser_ —”

“Come, come; uh—” Giving no indication that he'd heard, Rivington looked around himself. A captain sat at his elbow, and a major across from him; and others were crowded around them, leaving scarce room to lift a flagon. “Draw yourself up a chair, or something,” Rivington said, “and bring that bottle with you.”

Many people stood in want of their own seat, several of them women. One caught Robert’s eye briefly before laughing into her cup. She raised the back of her hand to press against her mouth and looked away.

He supposed he could bring out the stool from the storeroom behind the bar, and make light of the city’s scandals, and laugh heartily at stories told at others’ expense, but it seemed suddenly like a terribly hard thing to do. He would prefer to be abed, despite the fact that he was overwarm, it was still early in the evening.

He nearly had to shout to make himself audible. “Actually, I think I might retire. There is a light treatise on magnetism in my room I’ve been meaning to find the time for.”

Rivington looked over as though seeing him for the first time. He paused. Then he raised his glass. “To each his own!” He turned back to his guests, and did not press the offer.

The first delivery of the new year from Long Island included a letter from his father, handed to him by the cart driver, and the lack of concealment in his father's language _—_ lines such as _though human actions have proven false, their principles have not—_ raised the hairs on the back of Robert’s neck, even though the seal had not been broken, and he’d read it alone, in his room, with the door closed.

Robert was mentally composing rebuttals, point by point, when Hercules Mulligan entered the coffeehouse, stamping away the sleet of the street and hanging up a coat the exact color of a lemon. It made the striped green of his breeches seem dull by comparison. How he kept them clean, in this weather, Robert could not guess.

“Townsend! Just the man I was coming to see.”

“Indeed, sir,” Robert said. He folded his hands over the top of the bar. Mulligan was a brash one of Rivington’s breed, raised in the city with city thoughts in his mind, but he had good manners, and was one of the few regulars who would meet Robert’s eye gladly.

“My latest import of English toile has been overdue a month,” he said, his pale face ruddy from the cold. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any difficulties yourself here? With—” he made a gesture with his fingers, as though trying to pluck words from the air. “Salt or china and the like?”

“The weather _has_ been a little unpredictable of late,” Robert allowed. “But no delays thus far. Our suppliers are more local than yours, I suspect.”

“That’s a spot of luck for you.”

“Something warm?”

“Just tea. I’m only in for a moment.”

Robert recalled the man’s preferred brew, and as he set to it, the basement door opened and admitted Rivington, his shirtsleeves smeared nearly to the elbows with ink from the presses. He was pulling on his silk coat as he neared them, which covered the stains, save for the blackened frills of his cuffs.

Mulligan took in the state of him and declared, “I see you’re still wearing that dreadful thing. I implore you, come round to mine; I’ll make you something just as comfortable and twice as stylish, suitable for _outside_ the parlor—”

Rivington tweaked his collar into place. “Nonsense. My coffeehouse is my drawing room, and all its patrons my dear friends!”

Robert listened with one ear as he attended to Mulligan’s tea. He had heard some permutation the disagreement between them a dozen times, and his mind spun back to his father’s letter, conscious that it had been nearly a week, and he still had yet to send his reply.

“But wouldn’t you prefer—”

“—I know _exactly_ what I would prefer—”

“—the colors, James, really; the dye—”

“And what is wrong with—”

“—wouldn’t you agree, Townsend?” called Mulligan.

Robert looked up. Rivington had his fists on his hips, and Mulligan had draped his forearms jauntily across the back of a chair, an eyebrow raised indulgently. Robert glanced down at his own coat: grey, serviceable, plain, simple. He returned the eyebrow and said, “I wouldn’t know.”

“Always wearing the same thing, our Townsend. He could dress himself in the dark, and I’d wager he does, too; to spare his taper—remind me, how many boxes of the things have you saved since coming here?”

He knew he was taking Rivington's bait, but Robert replied nevertheless, "Two per day." It _was_ a large savings in cost. "And I do not dress myself in the dark," he added under his breath.

Mulligan, having moved to lean against the bar, was close enough to hear this, and laughed.

“What was that?” Rivington demanded.

“Nevermind, James,” Mulligan said. “Let me have my tea in peace. I’ve been dealing with the devil of a pair of pleated trousers all morning.”

Rivington put up his hands in surrender, and Mulligan took his cup from Robert’s hands, still warm.

It was his fifth or sixth attempt at a reply. He had wasted two pages of paper already, and he was determined that no more would feed the small grate in his room.

_York City, 20 th of 1st month, 1781_

_Dear Father,_

_I have decided that our joint venture is best left alone. The sale of French raspberry brandy is no longer a profitable trade_

He stopped. His father did not know what he’d done on behalf of the Continental Army encamped at Middlebrook, and if he did, Robert suspected his exhortations to once more risk life and limb for a cause that was not their own would redouble. If it were possible to dissuade his father of a notion via a letter oblique enough to withstand scrutiny should it be intercepted, Robert had not yet acquired the knack. He rubbed at his eyes. Pushing the letter aside, he reached for a less taxing occupation: stock manifests.

Several minutes later, Robert was shouldering open the door to the basement and descending, his eyes still scanning the columns. He ducked beneath newsprint dangling from the rafters to dry and skirted around the half-dozen young men preparing for the next edition. Robert found Rivington sorting through a chest of type at the far end of the room.

“What brings you down here,” Rivington asked. He was scrutinizing two nail-sized bits of metal which were, to Robert's eye, identical. 

He proffered the manifest. “Just a small concern.”

Rivington wandered over to the nearest press. He pecked at the tray, with its strange backwards configurations of grey pieces tightly arrayed within. “A concern?” he prompted.

“Yes. There are several things we would do well to purchase on commission, before the spring comes.”

Robert’s eyes followed the set of the type as Rivington inserted one of the pieces in his hand. He remembered the first and only time he'd used one, no light to work by save his own lamp, and his very veins reverberating with lack of sleep. Robert had held up the damp paper to the window's moonlight, and the words printed there had dropped into his mind with the rare simplicity of black against white. 

“Fascinating process, isn’t it?”

"I'm sorry?"

Rivington indicated the press with his chin.

“It seems...straightforward enough," he said.

Rivington pursed his lips. He made a low _hm_ sound. Robert began to suspect this had been the wrong answer. Then, raising his voice, Rivington turned to the room and called, “Did you hear that?”

Robert glanced sharply at Rivington. The presses around them creaked, groaned, and stopped. Paper fluttered to a standstill as men and boys paused in their work. Rivington continued, loudly, “Townsend here thinks printing to be _straightforward enough,_ does he?”

A few chuckled. To a one, they put down their implements and turned their attention on Robert. 

“I meant no offense,” Robert amended; unsure if he should address Rivington, or the room. 

“I don’t suppose you’d know your kerning from your leading? Your _italick_ from your Roman? Or how to form the coffin?” Rivington asked.

Robert blinked. He moved the manifest into his other hand, and the memory of that lone, clandestine night fled him. 

“Go on, then. Show us how it’s done.” Rivington stepped back and swept out an arm, indicating that Robert should take his place before the press. Six sets of curious eyes followed the movement. Robert shot a hard look at Rivington, but his expression of smug skepticism did not shift. 

Robert pulled himself to his full height. He set down the manifest with a snap and shrugged out of his coat. This prompted a wave of mutters, but he paid them no mind, and he strode to the press and took the inking balls in each hand. He had done this once before with no more experience than granted by observation and luck and God, and he would do it again. 

He bent to his task. All quieted, save for a boy, who shouted, "No, the tray next! The tray next!" Robert gave him a brief nod of acknowledgement. There seemed to be more steps than he remembered. He worked carefully, and only once did Rivington clear his throat: a pointed reminder for Robert to adjust the platen.

A sheen of sweat had gathered at Robert's hairline by the time he let go the lever and the print was finished. Robert reached, but Rivington was quicker. He plucked the paper from beneath his nose and held it up, tilting it this way and that to catch the light, and Robert waited, his arms stiff at his sides, as Rivington conducted his inspection. All was quiet in the room. 

With grave ceremony, Rivington turned and hung the print alongside its brethren on the drying line. 

The six printers broke into a small cheer. Robert nearly flinched at the sudden sound of it, but he felt his mouth tugging upwards, and he raised his eyebrows, dipping forward into a small bow. He picked up his coat and the manifest and arranged them neatly over his arm. "I shall leave you capable gentlemen to your work," he announced, and with that, he took his leave.

As he headed up the stairs, Rivington said, "And Townsend—we should place those commissions. Before the springtime.”

He paused. “I quite agree.”

It was only once he'd returned to his room that he noticed the large black ink smudge marring the hem of his shirt cuff. It was several more minutes before Robert remembered his father’s letter, waiting for him, unanswered, behind the false-backed drawer where he kept all the things he would rather forget. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on historicity: 
> 
> Turn takes its creative liberties, as all good historical fiction must, but overall I was very impressed with the degree to which the writers respected the period's social mores, settings, and historical trappings. I've endeavoured to do the same with this fic. However, the Turn canon's abridgment of certain historical events introduces a few problems. Some eighteen months elapses between the Continental Army's second encampment at Middlebrook (late '78) and Arnold's betrayal at West Point (Sept '80). Yet these events take place within the span of only three episodes (308 and 310 respectively), with nothing to imply that a large chunk of time has elapsed. 
> 
> As much as the pedant in me was tempted to elaborate upon the development of Robert and Rivington's relationship in those missing eighteen months, I decided that a "between the scenes"/post-canon approach would be a better way to explore the arcs and themes established in season 4 that drew me to the pairing in the first place. In order to build off the show's extant pacing and character development, I have compressed the events of late season 3 and season 4 into a one-year period starting November '80 and ending November '81. Knowing how historically literate this fandom is, I ask your indulgence for this and any other inaccuracies you may notice--I'm learning as I go!


End file.
